“Good morning, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.” — Truman Burbank, The Truman Show (1998)
Gracie passed away last week. She was 21.
On Monday, Lisa and I went to her service at Congregation Emanu-El.
Our girls went to different schools. But Katie grew up with the twins at Hebrew school. They went to each other’s b’nai mitzvah. In February, Lisa and I helped Amy fix a wardrobe malfunction at Lauren and Andrew’s 50th in Mexico. A few weeks ago, we saw the family at a Sukkot party. Nothing on anyone’s mind.
You don’t have to be close to show up. You just show up. And everyone did.
The sanctuary looked like the High Holidays. Every pew full, front to back.
For close to twenty minutes, nobody spoke. Just soft piano. Two empty chairs on the bimah. Hundreds of people, waiting. I have never felt a room hold that much love for one family.
Then the family came down the right side and took the front row.
Rabbi Ryan Bauer walked out with Cantor Arik Luck. The rabbi was on a cane. I learned later he had knee surgery the Wednesday before. Two hours after it, he was on the phone with the family.
They opened with an old prayer. Guardian of Israel, watch over Israel’s remnant. And of those among Israel who say Shema Yisrael, let none be lost.
He didn’t sugarcoat anything. “This is a nightmare,” he said. “We’re not supposed to be here.” Then he told us our job. Not to explain. To bring love. To bring memory. To sit in silence.
So we remembered. Here is what stayed with me.
I remember Cami, her best friend, describing a middle schooler belting Hamilton under the big tree at lunch. An upperclassman rolling to class on hot pink Heelys. Homemade signs at Cami’s college soccer games in Boston. “Canadians are nice. Stereotypes are harmful. And so is Cami.” The whole room laughed. She spoke for every friend who couldn’t be there, and she made us laugh the way Gracie would have.
I remember Nate saying he was born a few minutes before his sister, and it was the only race he ever won. She taught him to write. He says she is the reason he is at Williams. Once, at a scrimmage at Harvard where no fans were allowed, he looked over at the entrance and there she was, head to toe in Williams gear.
She just found a way in.
I remember him saying that grief is a list of small things that will never happen again. And his promise at the end. He will always be looking for her in the stands. He is 21.
I remember Lucy and the jar of ticks Gracie kept in their bathroom for a year. The free “I donated blood” shirt Gracie gave her for her birthday.
Neither of them ever had.
Marty said Lucy was the one who called the temple when the news came. Up there, she was every bit that strong.
I remember Amy describing a girl who folded her clothes like origami to fit a closet built for baby clothes, and never complained. Who carried a hammock everywhere, just in case. Who, at 10, wanted a gerbil so badly she hid little pink gerbil drawings all over the house. In the fridge. On the steering wheel. On Amy’s toothbrush.
They never got the gerbil.
Amy told us she hoped we would laugh. We did. Only a mother could pull that off on that day.
At a 10th grade volleyball game, Gracie found a pair of sneakers in the lost and found. The weekend before she died, in Boston, she was still wearing them.
I remember Marty telling us she lost the student government election three years in a row. Senior year she ran again and introduced herself by her losses.
She won.
She also once hit a boulder in a Tahoe parking lot. She claimed the boulder moved.
And then, more quietly, he told us he was hurt, but not broken. You could see both.
They remembered the details. She learned every waiter’s name. She baked maple bacon cupcakes for a construction worker because he mentioned he liked them. She noticed whoever was standing on the outside of a conversation and pulled them in.
Rabbi Bauer said Lucy had told him Gracie had too much grace. Maybe that is what made her Gracie.
Then the line I keep coming back to. “We do not know why Gracie died. But we know how she lived.”
And I remember Amy’s one request, at the end of her eulogy. She called it “Pull a Gracie.” Do something new. Try something different. Dance like no one’s watching. Make someone laugh. And when you do, think of her and say to yourself, “I just pulled a Gracie.”
Somewhere in that service I made a decision. Buffalo wings and a cold beer that night. I hadn’t had them in years. I love them.
I have three daughters. You sit in that sanctuary and you can’t help it. What if it were us?
When it ended, Lisa and I went home and called Katie. She is studying in Italy. She had seen the emails. Hearing her voice from the other side of the world was the only thing I wanted.
We asked her what she remembered about Gracie.
She didn’t hesitate. During the first COVID summer, she and Juju spent a day at the Ann Curtis Swim Club in Marin with Gracie and her little sister Lucy. That night they got invited to family movie night at Gracie’s.
The movie was The Truman Show.
There is a Truman Show poster above her bed in San Francisco. Until that call, I never knew where it came from.
The rest of the day was ordinary. It was exactly what we needed.
Lisa and I had lunch across the street with Lauren. We didn’t solve anything. We just talked.
Then Lisa drove Elle to her cross country meet, and Juju and I met them there. I have watched a lot of those races.
I watched this one differently.
That night, Andrew came over for the second half of Monday Night Football. Commanders at the Niners. Lisa, Andrew, and me. Wings. Beer.
It wasn’t much. That was the point.
I pulled a Gracie.
Here is what I am carrying out of that room.
Rabbi Bauer said this would be the easiest week of the next year for the family. Everyone shows up for shiva. Then it gets quiet. We move on. They don’t. So keep checking in. Every few weeks. Every few months. For a whole year. In his words, make them get sick of you.
Nate asked us to call the people we love. Not tomorrow. Not when things slow down. Today. Show up to the game nobody else is going to. Say yes to the movie. Stay for dinner.
And once in a while, pull a Gracie.
I keep thinking about that poster.
You never know which ordinary night a kid will remember forever.
Marty said that when his mind starts to wander, he stops it with one sentence. He puts a period at the end and holds it there.
Gracie was awesome. Period.
Good morning, Gracie. And in case we don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.
May her memory be a blessing.
Shared with the blessing of Marty, Amy, Nate, and Lucy.
Gracie is Awesome. Period